Pathway to Japanese Literature

Nightmare

I sometimes found myself in a bizarre state of mind.
There were times when a restless, malevolent wind—like what they called the lament of idle muscles—would rise from my heart’s depths.
First came a vague sense of suffocation.
Everything turned meaningless.
Hired as a company grunt, I spent each day from nine until four—sometimes past six—twisting meaningless numbers on an abacus, scrawling ledgers, making phone calls for others’ business, bowing endlessly until mind and body wore down to nubs; crushed in packed trains afterward, returning to my boarding house to eat rice and bathe before collapsing into blank sleep within a thin futon sack.
And all this yielded just sixty yen—Sundays brought no relief beyond sleeping late, empty walks and flickering movie screens while time oozed by.
What purpose kept me breathing?
Thinking this made everything hateful—myself most of all.
The true horror lay in life’s endless repetition: same days blurring without hope or variation.
Dwelling on it choked my lungs till near-suffocation.
What awaited me aging thus?
What of my youth’s vitality?
If only I could breathe deep beneath open skies...
Yet all remained cramped and wretched.
My three-tatami cell breathed stale air and dim light; outside offered narrow sky-slits between eaves, grimy air filtering pallid sun through packed trains and faceless crowds before returning me to that number-choked office dungeon—not one green leaf in sight.
Everything withered me—spirit first, then flesh itself.
Ah for something to hurl myself against!
But this city’s heart demanded no strength from men.
No earth awaited hoes.
No stumps for axes.

There was not even a vestige of expansive grasslands where one might run until breath gave out. Life became confined within bustling office work severed from the earth—immobilized in one place until movement grew impossible, rendered mechanical through daily repetition. The sweat seeping across my forehead wasn’t the vigorous, bracing sweat born of laboring muscles, but a clammy ooze from suffocating under thin air and meager sunlight. Nor was this affliction mine alone. All around me people either withered into desiccated husks or bloated into flabby masses—not one retained robust vitality. Faces that might recall farmers bearing fierce cruelty and gentle kindness, country girls radiating earthy strength—such visages proved utterly absent here. Let my spirit perish if it must! But this flesh coursing with hot blood—I would let nothing destroy it! Thus surged my silent scream.

And from the depths of my chest, something violently formless began seething upward—a brutal force indeterminate in shape.
I wanted to hurl myself against anything and everything with all my might.
I wanted to plant my feet in a sumo stomp and shove against the street trees.
I wanted to leap up and climb the wooden fences, stone walls, roofs, and whatever else stood towering before me.
I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs until my throat burst.
I wanted to land a single, solid punch with my clenched fist on the head of someone passing before me.
Whenever I saw wild beasts docilely pacing around in cramped iron cages at the zoo, I found myself growing unbearably irritated.

It was precisely when I felt myself searingly sinking into that very state of mind.
It was the first Sunday of the month—after paying boarding fees and other expenses, sixteen yen remained. From this sum, deducting my monthly allowance, I began considering with a genuinely pleasant feeling what to do with the extra money—I wanted clothes, wanted to see plays, wanted to drink sake, wanted books to buy, had various other desires—but just as I started pondering which of these to indulge in, that pleasant feeling shifted slightly and became clearly reflected in my mind. I made myself wretched and pitiful, thinking: Is this all the reward for a month's labors? Am I myself rejoicing with shallow giddiness over such compensation? Then envisioning my days before me, I grew unbearably gloomy and irritable.
Whether happiness or ill omen didn’t matter—I wanted something that would fill my chest to bursting with all my might.
The suffocating life dragging me along against my will was unbearable even to think about.
And I, having lost all desire to go outside, ended up spending that Sunday—which should have been enjoyable—lying sprawled in the dim three-tatami room, consumed by miserable anxiety born of utter exhaustion, until around three in the afternoon.
At that moment, a letter arrived from my older brother back home.
“PRIVATE” was boldly written across it.
“What could this be?” I thought reflexively, but the next instant, recalling how my older brother insisted on marking “PRIVATE” on every letter he wrote, I felt oddly circumvented—neither hurrying nor delaying—and slit open the envelope to read.

Though we face intense summer heat here, I humbly trust you remain well in your parts. All in our household enjoy good health, so please rest assured. Father remains in good health as always and continues working in the fields with vigor surpassing even younger men. Kensaku grows bigger every day—lately I’ve begun taking him along to outdoor tasks, though he causes trouble by misbehaving along river embankments. My wife becomes so preoccupied with thoughts of you that she scarcely applies herself to work properly. Evenings find us all speaking of your affairs. Having received no recent correspondence, Father and all others grow concerned—we beg you send word of your circumstances. As the heat will only intensify henceforth, take utmost care against contaminated water or food. Shōbei’s mare has foaled, an event that delights the entire village. Our own horse remains exceedingly robust—galloping him along riverbanks at dusk proves most gratifying. We pray earnestly for your continued success through prudent caution in all matters.

As I looked at my older brother’s letter—thickly scrawled with a blunt brush—I found myself recalling my hometown’s natural scenery as though remembering a distant dream.
A pristine riverbed lined with round stones stretching endlessly, vast green fields spreading across the land, an azure sky expanding beyond sight with drifting clouds... Of all these, I had loved watching those clouds most.
“What do you think staring at clouds will accomplish?”
My mother would often say this to me when I was young...

As I drifted between these memories, two small figures gradually took shape within my mind.
Amidst all that remained distant and blurred in that hazy void, only these two stood out—diminutive yet sharply defined.
One was my older brother’s small form buried within vast nature, cultivating his own food through sweat on his brow.
The other was my own tiny figure—uprooted from nature now drowning in urban crowds while toiling away.
And I—feeling genuinely human and contemplative for the first time in ages—began writing a letter to my older brother.

However, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't complete the letter.
After going through the usual seasonal greetings and apologies for my prolonged silence, I found myself at a loss for what to write next.
My older brother had asked me to inform him of my recent circumstances, but what could there possibly have been worth formally reporting now?
Day after day, the same existence from morning until night?
But my older brother already knew all that.

If I said nothing had changed, that would end the matter—but unlike country living, when city life stays "unchanged," it literally means no change at all. Would my older brother ever grasp that? No—not just him. Nobody could understand this existence except those who'd lived it themselves.

I tore up the unfinished letter, stood up, and paced around the room—then wandered outside without changing stride.
But my walking the streets in that manner held an entirely different meaning from a mere exercise stroll or anguished wandering.
While circling the room, I'd developed a craving to tread upon unyielding earth—to clomp across solid ground like a workhorse.
If possible, I wanted to stamp bare feet into chill black loam.
Yet when I emerged outside, not only could I not go unshod, but my feet autonomously veered toward the clamorous thoroughfare.

The street on that gloomy overcast day, swathed in the pale shadows of approaching evening, displayed an oddly restless commotion.
On both the sidewalk and roadway, two distinct rhythms emerged.
Automobiles and bicycles accelerating unnaturally clashed discordantly with empty carts plodding leisurely along; meanwhile, people sauntering about—some actually puffing on cigarettes while others merely mimicked the gesture—stood in sharp contrast to those scurrying hurriedly as if carrying cloth bundles, though in reality some bore parcels while others did not.
Every train stopped at each station would disgorge and swallow passengers while remaining perpetually packed to bursting.
Amidst those tumultuous crowds upon the parched asphalt, I found myself becoming bewildered, wondering why I had come to such a place.
If I wanted to touch the earth's skin, shouldn't I have gone instead to some quiet backstreet?
But within the city there existed an allure that drew people toward the bustling crowds, toward those swirling turbid stifling places.
That was the city's bewitchment.

Caught in that spellbinding allure, I was walking blankly when a desolate loneliness began pressing against my heart.
And this self I kept being forced to confront—torn from nature’s roots and suffocated by the city—stood revealed as the most pitiful wretch.
My chest filled with profound gloom until I felt an unspeakable tightness seeping into my very bones.
But even someone like me—had there been a loving wife and children waiting, a warm home, perhaps even a tender lover... No, even without such things—had I but means enough for variety and leisure, I might have strutted confidently down the city’s grand thoroughfares.
Or if such living and wealth weren’t mine alone—if shared by all humanity with just my rightful portion—perhaps then this choking weight might lift... Turning these thoughts over like some distant fairy tale, I grew increasingly revolted by myself and everything around me.
Like a suffocating man thrashing limbs in final desperation, I burned to commit some violently abnormal act—smashing a pedestrian’s skull or ramming a street tree.
Noticing the familiar urge returning even as I watched speeding cars pass, I wanted to detonate them all in fiery bursts exactly like those flickering images from the pictures.
And perhaps most of all, it was myself who yearned to explode.

But had nothing happened, I would have hung my head listlessly despite my racing heart, slunk back to the boarding house, and meekly gone to sleep to return to work the next day.
However...

Nothing is more terrifying than coincidence.
A mere chance trigger may wrench a person’s heart toward left or right.
A man I knew once climbed to the top of a large persimmon tree to harvest fruit. Though aware of the danger should he fall, he gripped a branch tightly with both hands—but when a ripe persimmon suddenly dropped before his eyes, his resolve faltered. He released his hold and plunged from that height, wrenching his leg.
Another man I knew indirectly had resolved to die by train. Under the pallid moonlight of early dusk, he chose his death spot along the tracks and hid in nearby bushes to await the locomotive. Yet when a small snake crawled from beneath his feet and dragged itself laboriously across the rails, he abandoned his plan without reason—as casually as he had conceived it.

Be that as it may, as I walked along the edge of the sidewalk with resentful eyes fixed straight ahead, a small puppy—its curled tail tip wagging—slipped into the commotion and staggered down into the roadway.
It was a plump, round puppy with pure white fur dotted with red patches.
"What a cute dog," I thought—when a car came speeding toward it. In an instant, a blaring horn and the dog’s sharp yelp erupted simultaneously.
The car bearing the driver’s expressionless face—who had glanced back for a moment—regained its momentarily slackened speed and glided smoothly past, only for the puppy to suddenly dart out from the plume of oily smoke left in its wake.
After darting out, it leaped up once more before tumbling over and over, still yelping incessantly until it managed to rise on three legs. Dragging a hind limb that dripped blood, it staggered yet disappeared surprisingly swiftly into the dark alleyway.
Five or six people had stopped to vacantly watch the puppy’s leg dangling limply as blood dripped.
I was one of them.
As soon as the dog vanished into the alleyway, I found myself running to that spot.
It was a dark, cramped passage that seemed to stretch endlessly within, from which the puppy’s piercing yelps echoed and spilled out to fill the narrow space. This lasted only moments before utter stillness fell.
From that silence came a sensation that froze me rigid.

Before long, I shoved my hands into my pockets and began walking with heavy, deliberate steps.
I felt the pain of the puppy’s broken leg within my own flesh.
And too, I found myself thinking that if you could escape unscathed after crushing a dog’s leg in such crowded streets—that so long as you fled fast enough—anything you did would be forgiven.
Then I found myself gripped by a kind of blood-reeking, unnatural frenzy.
It was that same cruel venomous thrill I’d known as a country child—forcing snakes to regurgitate frogs by rubbing sticks against their swollen throats, watching those half-dead creatures finally stagger free—the kind of excitement that made your hair stand on end.

And after some time had passed, I realized I was following a certain man.
He was a middle-aged man in a suit, emaciated as if suffering from tuberculosis.
From beneath a faded straw hat flickered ears that looked thin enough for veins to show if held to light and the dull pallor of cheeks. My eyes burned feverishly upon them, my fists clenched tight within my coat pockets.
It seemed I had intended to slap the man's cheek with a resounding smack.
Why?
...There were too many people.
Too many people being suffocated by mechanical existence.
And this man too—I myself too—were far too wretched.
I wanted an exit—an exit from this suffocation...
I was sinking into those feelings.

At that moment, I abruptly stopped in my tracks.
As I gradually became aware of my intent to strike the wretched man before me—and from the fear that I might actually carry it out—my forcibly averted gaze fell upon a glassware shop across the way.
Shelves lined with goldfish bowls and other containers, shelves lined with cups and similar items, shelves lined with vases, lampshades, and other decorative pieces—and at the very back, a platform standing with an array of mirrors—all these things were crammed into every available space. At the center, on the raised threshold, sat a single balding shopkeeper, hunched and solitary. Above these objects blazed several electric lights—truth be told, it was only then that I first noticed electric lights and gas lamps now illuminated storefronts and streets—and their glow reflected off all the glassware, transforming the shop’s interior into a glittering palace of glass.
And what was strange was that, despite my head and chest seething turbulently, they had attained the same crystal-clear clarity as those glassware.
I thought of such foolish things as, If an earthquake were to strike and shatter that glass palace to pieces, perhaps the turmoil in my chest would clear up—but in truth, it wasn’t foolish at all—it was intensely serious.
Who cares? I’ll take it down!
And so I made up my mind in an instant.
And I immediately put it into action.
I simply couldn’t bear it any longer—I had to carve out some kind of release from this suffocating buildup of emotions within me.

Opposite the glass shop, slightly off to the side from directly across, there was a dimly lit alleyway.
I entered that alleyway and, after a while, bent down casually to pick up a pebble in each hand. Concealing them in my sleeves, I returned to the alley’s exit.
None of the people passing through the main street were glancing toward the alley, and within the dim alleyway, no human figures could be seen.
Even if there had been someone watching me, I would have still carried it out by seizing the slightest gap in their attention.
Planting myself at the alley’s exit, I swept a quick glance around before swinging up my right arm and hurling a stone with all my strength toward the great mirror inside the glass shop across the way.
Immediately after, I took the slightly larger rock from my left hand with my right and hurled it.
I couldn’t tell where the stone had landed, but there came a sudden sense of glass breaking—then something slightly larger, a disturbance neither wholly sound nor light: shards scattering in every direction, a cathartic chaos erupting within the silent glass palace.
And in that instant, the shopkeeper abruptly stood up.
He was a ridiculously tall man who seemed to be staring straight at me with unblinking intensity.

Having perceived all that, for some reason, I felt my knees trembling uncontrollably. And without even a moment to properly assess the outcome, I swiftly spun around and fled, quickening my pace. I proceeded along the alley for a while, turned right and then left, trying to obscure my trail as much as possible. At that moment, my mind was a chaotic swirl of disparate things—no sense of order could be made. As if a cave had opened in my chest, a cool wind blew straight through. My head burned hot. There was something persistently weighing on my mind. My core felt firmly anchored, yet my footsteps were oddly restless and unsteady. How to escape most safely—such things I turned over in my mind. I knew well from the newspapers that the police’s reach extended to every corner of this city. I thought this was no time for fumbling around. Staying still in my boarding house felt like the safest option. Taking a long, winding detour, I returned to my boarding house. And after grasping the lattice door of my boarding house, I looked back for the first time. Until then, I hadn’t once looked back.

The landlady came out and asked, “What about dinner?”
In response to her question, I answered that I’d already taken care of it.
After sitting motionless in my room for some time—my mind refusing to settle—I went out to the tearoom that served as a common area for everyone (though “everyone” only meant three lodgers in this amateur-run boarding house).
A university student who supposedly studied philosophy was listlessly blowing cigarette smoke in front of the long brazier.
The landlady was sewing in the corner.
I sat down beside the long brazier across from the university student.

And the two of us had a conversation roughly as follows.

“Putting it this way might sound odd, but suppose someone were to kill for… let’s say some personal motive or interest. Would that murder be considered a graver sin than others?”

“Well, since I’m no specialist, I can’t speak to degrees of guilt—but even such a killing remains undeniably a proper murder.”

“Even so, wouldn’t that still be a more justifiable murder than one committed to steal money or something like that?”

“It could be called more justifiable… but then again, one might also say it’s even more heinous.”
“Because those who commit murder out of mere curiosity or momentary impulse are undoubtedly individuals of an extremely cruel disposition—so much so that one could say they’re closer to animals than humans.”
“Moreover, since murder itself is a crime, whether done for money or interest—such distinctions hardly matter.”
“Among acts pursued out of interest, there are indeed those that fully qualify as crimes.”
“To give an example—why do you think something like rape is committed?”

“That is undoubtedly due to lust, I suppose.”

“That’s correct.”
“But how much difference is there between what we call lust and what we term interest?”
“Relatively weak lust is no different from mere interest.”
“But by human nature, murder is often committed out of money, jealousy, or resentment, while rape is often committed out of lust, interest, or momentary mood—and both undeniably constitute serious crimes, don’t they?”
“The nature of the act, rather than the motive, is the fundamental issue.”

“Is that so? Then setting murder aside—if someone were to destroy another’s possessions out of some feeling, would that still count as a grave crime?”

“Yes, that’s a proper case of property damage. When you consider it lightly, people often destroy others’ belongings with a mindset of mere mischief, but it’s wrong to belittle it as just ‘property.’ This is purely my personal view, but anything in this world possessing even roughly a fixed form deserves respect. Living beings go without saying, but even lifeless tools all contain the labor of the humans who crafted them. To put it another way—just as currency isn’t mere paper or metal but embodies human labor, so too do all implements embody the labor expended by their makers. Therefore, destroying objects means destroying human labor—in the truest sense, this naturally constitutes a rather heavy sin.”

“But hasn’t the person who crafted it already received compensation for that?”

“They have received it.”
“In exchange, hasn’t the person who bought it paid that amount of money—or rather, the equivalent in labor?”
“Wherever they go, utensils concretely demonstrate their owner’s labor.”

“In that case, it would mean not a single thing in this world—no matter how unnecessary—can be destroyed even slightly.”

“Well, yes.”
“Things that break naturally can’t be helped, but to actively destroy anything—that’s sinful through and through.”
“Discarding something beats destroying it outright.”
“To take it to extremes—even shaving one’s beard might count as a transgression.”

“Yet you still shave every few days.”
“Why not let it grow longer?”

“I haven’t cultivated that level of discipline yet.”
“Instead, I’ve let my hair grow wild like this—avoiding cuts as much as possible.”
“Besides, some sin proves unavoidable in living.”
“Because the very act of consumption itself becomes a sin.”
“One can only compromise—handling one’s own things as one sees fit, while never laying a finger on others’ belongings.”

“Then what if touching another’s belongings becomes necessary for living?”

“Does such a necessity even exist?”

“No, there may be times when it does exist.
“Or even a feeling that one simply can’t go on living without doing so…”

“That isn’t a necessary feeling—it’s a luxurious one.”
“It’s luxury that complicates the world.”
“If people simply abandoned luxury, they could live in perfect peace.”

“Is that truly how it is?”

“Indisputably!”

There our conversation drifted away from that issue, but my mind continued to dwell on it relentlessly. This student was irritatingly skilled at logic yet utterly ignorant of real-world matters—I strained to convince myself of this, and genuinely believed it too, yet fragments of his words still resonated within me. I began questioning whether my suffering stemmed from mere self-indulgence, whether I'd thrown stones at the glass shop out of some decadent curiosity. No—that couldn't be right—I felt this conviction in my heart and affirmed it mentally, yet found myself unable to stay still. Worse yet lingered this absurd, foggy anxiety that the police might be tracking me down. All these thoughts tangled together, pulling me back toward that glass shop's facade. However desperately I tried, I couldn't quell this restless urge that demanded I witness the consequences firsthand.

And after a while, I went out.
It was a truly grotesque sensation.
It wasn’t the morbid curiosity that drives one to glimpse something terrifying, nor was it the restless impatience of desperate anticipation—but rather something like being ensnared in spider’s silk, teeth clenched so hard they might shatter.
And for some reason, after taking a long detour, I went to see the glass shop.
And when I suddenly found myself standing before it and looked up, I stopped in my tracks, stunned.

The interior of the glass shop had not changed in the slightest from its state before I had thrown the stone.
The goods were arranged as before, the clerk was stationed as before, the lights were lit as before—it remained a blazing glass palace, with only a pair of customers shopping for something being different.
Then, had my two stones not reached inside?
No—that couldn’t be.
I had indeed witnessed the glass fragments scattering and the clerk standing up.
……That’s right—everything had been neatly cleaned up right away.
In the time it took me to flee, everything had been restored to its former state.
Overwhelmed by resentment and despair, I stood rooted in place, staring for some time.
Then I retraced my steps a little down the alley and tried to pick up another stone.
The moment I became aware of my own actions, a sudden terror of unease began to rise within me.

Everything remained detached from me with icy clarity, as if separated by a single pane of glass, when suddenly something leaped into my mind from within that void. That was the path I had traced. The route from when I threw the stone until returning to the boarding house and the path from the boarding house back out again had become visible to my eyes with an uncanny clarity. It was two winding ropes whose ends were tied together—one end at the boarding house and the other at the alley where I now stood. The image of my own figure walking round and round that same path countless times flashed through my mind.

I could no longer endure it—with a spirit of rebellion against something, yet as if fleeing from the two connected paths trying to ensnare me, I burst out onto the main street. While glaring at the glass shop across the way, I walked for some time, but when I could bear it no longer, I leaped onto a passing train.

As I pondered where to go next, the conductor approached. I immediately presented my ticket and named the city's most crowded, sweltering, drunkenly dissolute district as though it had always been my predetermined destination.
Only then did my resolve to go there crystallize.
To visit such a place and drown myself in the human tide perfectly aligned with my state of mind at that moment.

Until reaching it after two train transfers, I strained not to think of anything.
Even after disembarking, I marched straight toward a cheap eatery whose location I knew.
I lowered myself onto a wobbling wooden stool wedged between laborers and threadbare students, drinking alone with ferocious persistence.
Though countless cafés offered stronger libations at lower prices, I couldn't bring myself to cross any threshold bearing that name.
The dim confines of an earthen-floored pit felt more welcoming than any space adorned with white marble or aproned servers.

And as I drank alcohol, I repeated in my mind: It's not luxury, it's not luxury.
How could it be mere luxury or caprice?
Even if it appears that way to others, to me it was serious.
And yet what recompense did my rebellion born from the depths of such suffering—my acts verging on madness—receive?
The city calmly swallowed the ripples I had cast without so much as a tremor.
No matter how many stones I threw into that glass shop, it would soon be restored to its pristine form and shine again.
And I alone would tremble in fear, fleeing round and round the same path bounded by my boarding house and the alleyway like a racehorse.
What petty misery!
All the more reason—let this body and this life be wholly swallowed by the city, buried in its mire.

However, as alcohol coursed through my empty stomach, a murky agitation began rearing its head within me.
If my previous despondency had been largely mental, this time it was overwhelmingly physical.
I surveyed the people around me.
And there flashed through my mind an image of those workers' darkened blood—their eyes gleaming with subterranean light.
By comparing them to rural farmers whose lives I knew intimately, I could nearly grasp how wretched these city-drained laborers' existences must be.
I could nearly taste the choking licentiousness fermenting within their squalid lives.
Humans do not easily shrivel into nothingness.
Some bestial vitality—vigorous and potent even in its corruption—must surge turbulently within them somewhere.
I yearned to jostle those broad-shouldered workers guffawing and licking their lips.

It seemed the moving pictures had ended, for the once-bustling main street had gradually fallen silent.
I hurriedly finished the remaining alcohol and snacks and abruptly stepped outside.

It was a stiflingly muggy, gloomy evening.
The sky too seemed damp with sweat.
The soot-blackened central pillar, its glossy sheen from being rubbed in—embracing such feelings with force, I slipped into the narrow, winding path.
Even within me—tormented by this suffocating, dead-end existence—there still remained an intense, feverish force.

I entered a certain house I happened upon—neither of my own volition nor by invitation—with the unsteady gait of a drunkard, shamelessly slipping inside.

“Send someone—anyone—here.”

With that curt statement, I was led to a narrow second-floor room.
But in truth, it wasn't that anyone would do.
What I sought was a robust, full-bodied physique—one that wouldn't flinch when struck, with an embrace of crushing strength.
Yet I couldn't bring myself to explicitly request some oversized lump of flesh.
As I waited—or rather, before proper waiting could begin—there appeared behind me a diminutive woman directly contradicting my requirements, frail in both height and frame.
She resembled some malnourished, stunted creature arrested mid-development.

“Just how old are you, anyway?”

To the woman seated before the square, dingy low table, I posed that question.

“Fourteen.”

The woman answered in a lilting tone, her faint smile revealing teeth stained black with miso.

“Fourteen… You’ve grown quite well for that.”

“What?”

"I thought you were around seventeen or eighteen."

"Right."

With an unenthusiastic reply, she stared intently at me.
I stared back at that face.
Beneath a vulgar, protruding forehead lay sunken dull eyes, yet around her mouth lingered a dewy freshness—the flesh from wrists to fingertips splayed limply over the low table made her claim of being fourteen not entirely implausible.

“At fourteen or so, why did you end up in a place like this?”

“Because my family was struggling.”

“Isn’t it hard?”

“That’s really hard. The older sisters always send me out first to customers who don’t ask for anyone by name—to keep me from suffering, they say—but I hate it, hate it beyond bearing.”
“Maybe it’s because I’m always exhausted, but I’m unbearably sleepy.”

“Hey! Don’t spout such nonsense! How dare you talk like that in front of a customer!”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry!”

She raised her eyebrows, opened her eyes wide, tilting her neck supplely as she put on a coquettish act astonishing for a young girl.

“How long has it been since you started this line of work?”

“It’s only been two months.”

“That’s a lie. Fourteen might be true, but two months—that’s a lie.”

“No, it’s really true.”

Despite her being fourteen, I—who had begun to feel some interest and had come asking various clumsy questions—now found my feelings strangely adrift and fell completely silent.
She too remained silent.
After a while, she deliberately began speaking in a childish, cloyingly sweet tone.

“I’m starving—won’t you let me have something to eat?”

“Then you should order some sushi.”
“And have them add a bottle of sake while you’re at it.”

She started to stand up but suddenly sat back down.

“You can stay tonight, right?”

“You can’t stay.”

“Why?”

“I have to go back.”

“Then, an hour…” she began before pausing briefly. “Let’s make it two hours. Okay?”

Into my dazed eyes that had vaguely looked back at her, she threw a faint smile-laden glance before descending the stairs with labored movements.

Left hunched alone over the empty low table for twenty minutes—or perhaps less—I stayed motionless.
Lying on my back, blowing cigarette smoke at a water-stain blotch on the sooty ceiling, I sank into depths of wanting never to move again.
What purpose had brought me to this house?
All earlier lust had vanished—just myself now, cast into this unfamiliar corner-room of the city.
Even when she returned with sushi plates, a sake flask, and peas, I kept lying sprawled without rising.
Only after repeated urgings about the cooling sake did I finally lift my upper body.

“Are you angry?”

I didn’t reply.

“What’s wrong? Sitting there all silent.”
“Are you mad?”

“Making me wait like that—anyone would get pissed.”

“I’m really sorry.”
“The food took ages to come.”

When I lifted my cup, she started wolfing down the sushi we’d ordered.

“Still sulking? After all my apologies?”

“You’re not apologizing right.”

Though I feigned sulkiness, my feelings weren’t truly fixated there at all.
I couldn’t bear remaining still any longer.

“Hey, if I said I’d take you and run away together, would you come with me?”

“Yes, I’ll go.”

“Then what if I said we should die together?”
“I wouldn’t mind dying.”

“Then what if I said I’d strangle just you?”

“No way! Not all by myself!”

“Finally showing your true colors, huh? Come over here so I can strangle you.”

“No way I’m coming.”

“You really won’t come, will you.”

“Yeah.”

As she glared back at me with sunken eyes, her nose tilted up sharply in haughtiness, I suddenly sat up, seized her, and pulled her onto my lap. It was a thin arm without flesh—one that looked ready to snap if clutched with force. Only the breasts could be felt plumply swelling even through the kimono. And I, looking at this small girl who had yielded her body with a derisive snort, began pondering what brutal methods I could use on her. It was a venting of frustration against the oppressed, and also a venting of frustration against himself.

After that, I forgot the words I had said about leaving and dozed off until near dawn.

When I awoke, the five-candlepower electric lamp glowed an unnatural dim red, and distant steam whistle blasts with other reverberations heralded dawn's approach.
I raised my upper body and gazed at the face of the disheveled girl lying beside me.
Resentment surged up within me—the kind born from having committed some irreparably shameful act.
I tried to rouse the girl.
She stretched one arm fully and began opening her eyes a crack, only to fall back into peaceful slumber.
I properly got up, retied my obi, and smoked a cigarette.
Then I shook her again.
Still she didn't open her eyes.
I wanted to flee right then.
The thought that I might slip out through quietly opened shutters undetected struck even me as contemptible; I shook her violently once more, and when she began stirring awake, slapped her cheek.
She started up in surprise and stared hard at me before suddenly speaking out.

“You hit me.”

“I hit you.”
“No matter how much I shook you, you wouldn’t wake up.”
“If you don’t wake up, should I give you another hit?”

“What, if you’re going to hit me, go on and try.”
“Come on, if you can hit me, then hit me.”

She seemed to still be caught in last night’s dream.
With a scorched-out lewd gaze that bore no resemblance to a young girl’s, she began inching closer to me.
I felt as if I’d been doused with icy water.
While staring wide-eyed, I decisively slapped her across the cheek.
I braced myself for her to come lunging at me any moment, but she instead made a crumpled bitter face. Just as she seemed to hold her breath, a large tear spilled down her cheek—and with that as the trigger, she burst into loud sobs.
I was taken aback and couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
There was nothing to do but stare vacantly at her childlike sobs, but the next moment, I too was overcome by a strange emotion, and tears began streaming down my face.
After that, tears flowed out even more violently.

Eventually, I wiped away my tears and stood up.
I glared down from above at the figure of the young girl—wearing only a waistband, crouched and crying on a thin, dirty futon—and spoke.

“I’m leaving now.”

The girl shook her head like a spoiled child.

I crouched down over her back, gently placing a hand on her shoulder, and repeated once more.

"I'm leaving now. The night's over."

Then I took out the remaining five-yen bill from last night's payment—all I had left—and pressed it into her hand.

“It’s not much, but keep it. ……Hey, I’m leaving now.”
“The night’s over.”

She raised her tear-streaked face and looked at me.
When I stood up, she too stood up like an automaton.
Then she followed me down the creaking steep stairs that groaned underfoot, handed me my geta, and opened the front door.
Without so much as glancing back toward her silent form, I threw out a “Goodbye” and rushed outside.

Beneath a cloudy sky, in the murky half-light that only gradually revealed itself as dawn, it was a daybreak that resembled twilight. With feeble, unsteady steps, I passed through winding alleys, arrived at a nearby park, and sat on a bench near the pond. The dark, gloomy sky that had remained overcast since yesterday; the dimly lit haze of a sightless dawn; the murky pond water lying stagnant and dull; the silent, peeling buildings—all of it pressed down heavily upon my heart.

I remained motionless for a long time.
Steeped in a foul, detestable stench, I felt a strangely fragile emptiness—as though everything inside me had been completely expelled.
As I closed my eyes against that emptiness, a chilly wind flowed in from somewhere.
I lifted my face as though waking from a dream.
It was an indescribable feeling.
It was a refreshing clarity that defied categorization—whether it was the feeble vigor after illness, having shed its impurities, or the extremity of exhaustion from being completely overwhelmed.
And I inhaled the cold air as deeply as I could into the depths of my chest.
I inhaled and inhaled again.
Being able to breathe effortlessly into the depths of my chest was better than anything else.
I remained seated on the bench and thrashed my legs about.

At that moment, something made a sharp metallic sound near the tip of my geta.
When I crouched down to look, there lay a single one-sen copper coin.
I picked it up absently—if something like gods existed... I felt as though receiving divine favor—and slipped it into my sleeve.
Then I stood up, suddenly seized by chills, and began trudging back along the distant road where no trains ran yet, toward the boarding house.